Amidst the hand-wringing of the automaker bailout debate, Ron Paul took the opportunity on the House floor yesterday to remind Congress that the real culprit behind the financial crisis is the Federal Reserve, and that allowing the Fed to continue to print money without audit will only prolong the pain.

“If you look at the grand problem we have it’s much much bigger,” said Paul.

“There were many who predicted that the climax would be exactly as we are witnessing,” said the Congressman before lamenting that no one seems willing to go back and discover how financial bubbles form and how they burst.

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“Instead we just carry on doing the same old thing….we spend more money, we run up more debt, we print more money, and we think that’s gonna solve the problem that was created by spending too much money, running up debt, printing too much money and here we are today,” stated the Congressman, adding that Congress was debating about “tinkering on the edges” while failing to deal with the big problem.

Paul said that the Fed’s creation of over $8 trillion dollars in obligations was outside the audit of Congress.

“They create this money and when the Fed chairman comes before our committee we ask, where did you dispose of this $2 trillion dollars that you’ve created recently, he says well it’s not your business, he doesn’t even have to tell us” exclaimed Paul, adding that the Federal Reserve was out of control.

“We’re dealing only with finding victims, we cannot get rid of the debt,” said Paul, adding that the cause of the bubbles was the result of monetary policy dictated by the Federal Reserve system.